In 2024, North Dakota voters will probably vote whether or not to eliminate real estate property taxes. It looks like it will be a proxy war between the obvious factions within the North Dakota Republican party. Republicans in recent history have comprised roughly 75% of North Dakota voters. Is the Republican party still the party
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Imagine a science fiction episode in the classic old black and white series, The Twilight Zone. The main character is a middle class woman in a middle class town in the Midwest called Lake Flaccid. The woman has a toothache. She goes to her dentist. Her dentist doesn’t treat her but instead offers her his
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There is now a petition being passed around with the stated goal of protecting election integrity in future North Dakota elections. There are several questions the citizens of our state may wish to consider. County auditors are the boots on the ground regarding North Dakota elections. Do they think there is a problem? The North
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Is it too early to speculate about next year’s North Dakota gubernatorial race? If Governor Burgum doesn’t run again, what can we expect and who will try to succeed him? We should feel safe to assume that if the Democrats field a candidate, he or she will more than likely have several disadvantages. Let’s start
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I don’t claim to have all the answers, but being curious by nature, have several questions. My friends in the Republican party are against waste, fraud and abuse in government. They have been in total control of state government in Bismarck since 1994. It would be very educational to have an itemized list of the
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It is very gracious of the Minot Voice to give me a voice. Like the Federalists and the Whigs of early American history, the North Dakota Democratic party may be on the road to being a mere memory. Why and how that has happened, I will leave to historians. There is plenty of blame to
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Our nation’s founding fathers were in search of perfection in an imperfect world. The American experiment, although flawed as is any other human endeavor, is something that has had immeasurable benefit for those of us who are lucky enough to live in this country. Separation of church and state is one of their lasting legacies.
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I recently completed reading The 1619 Project. I may or may not have bothered, but the fact that many political types want to ban it from public schools piqued my curiosity. The book is a compilation of essays by a number of authors of African descent giving their opinions on race relations in the USA.
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As the 2020 election is approaching, America appears to be deeply divided. Finding bipartisan consensus is becoming uncomfortably difficult. In North Dakota, however, we have apparently achieved consensus on one important issue. That is the benefit of socialism. North Dakota, at the state level, has been a one-party state since 1994. During that 26 year
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I recently attended a conference in Chicago where one of the featured speakers was a well- regarded demographer from the University of North Carolina. According to his research, for the first time ever in the USA, children in the first grade with brown skin, outnumber children with white skin. By his definition, children with brown
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Reasonable people should at least agree in concept that some degree of control should be exercised by the federal government at the Mexican border. The Mexican border is ground zero for immigration. Canadians appear to be content with high taxes, socialized medicine, expensive booze, expensive gasoline, and less than balmy weather. We should hardly blame
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Are there works of literature, music or pop culture which somewhat describe current events in our nation’s capital? Could it be Dante’s Inferno? Could it be Alice in Wonderland? Could it be To Kill a Mockingbird? Could it be The Crucible? Could it be The Emperor Has No Clothes? Is it like watching One Flew
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In a matter of weeks, I will be retiring from the private practice of law. It has been an interesting run with victories, defeats, joy, and pain. I won’t be completely idle, however, as I am involved with several endeavors of interest to me. Minds, like bodies, can atrophy without some stimulation. When I moved
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From 30,000 feet up, the debate in our country over the excessive amount of gun violence is interesting. The 2nd Amendment (the right to bear arms) is cited sanctimoniously by “strict constructionists” of our constitution who claim our founders guaranteed us the right to bear arms which had not yet been invented. How does someone
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It is too early to speculate on the outcome of the Presidential race in 2020. If Trump does not get re-elected, however, there will be a chapter in American history and law for which there is no precedent. Michael Cohen, who was Trump’s personal lawyer, has pleaded guilty and been sentenced to prison for a
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In prior writings, I have described our country as “The Divided States of America”. No matter who is elected President in 2020, I am skeptical of that person’s capacity to unite the American public. It seems that the left and the right are tugging their respective political parties into positions which label compromise and basic
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